She laid her hand upon the head of
the girl, who, when she saw the woman weeping, also began to weep
bitterly; she very likely felt that this was a good soul inclining
toward her, and a dawning consciousness began to steal over her that she
had really lost her parents.
Suddenly the woman's face seemed irradiated. She raised her still
tearful eyes to heaven, and said:
"Gracious God, Thou givest me the thought." Then, turning to the child,
she went on: "Listen--I will take you with me. My Lisbeth was just your
age when she was taken from me. Tell me, will you go with me to Allgau
and live with me?"
"Yes," replied Amrei, decidedly.
Then she felt herself nudged and seized from behind. "You must not!"
cried Damie, throwing his arms around her--and he was trembling all
over.
"Be still," said Amrei, to soothe him. "The kind woman will take you
too. Damie is to go with us, is he not?"
"No, child, that cannot be--I have boys enough."
"Then I'll not go either," said Amrei, and she took Damie by the hand.
There is a kind of shudder, wherein a fever and a chill seem to be
quarreling--the joy of doing something and the fear of doing it. One of
these peculiar shudders passed through the strange woman, and she looked
down upon the child with a certain sense of relief. In a moment of
sympathy, urged on by a pure impulse to do a kind deed, she had proposed
to undertake a task and to assume a responsibility, the significance
and weight of which she had not sufficiently considered; and,
furthermore, she had not taken into account what her husband would think
of her taking such a step without her having spoken to him about it.
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